


Lost and Found

by Wordsplat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 07:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16259801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordsplat/pseuds/Wordsplat
Summary: Tony is completely, totally, 100%...not even a little bit over his high school sweetheart. Rhodey tries to fix that and comes to regret his life choices in the process.





	Lost and Found

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Did you ask a question?” Rhodey raised an eyebrow at him innocently, poker face perfect as ever as they walked down yet another unfamiliar street.

Tony had definitely asked a question. He had in fact asked about a hundred questions since Rhodey came home from ROTC training only to abruptly drag him away from his midterm project, tell him to shave and put on his best outfit, then threw him in the car claiming ‘you need this’ and saying nothing further. Tony had asked  _where are we going_ and  _why are we going wherever we’re going_ and  _have you finally snapped and is this the part where you murder me_ all to no effect whatsoever. He was pretty sure he knew the answer to the last one but still had no clue about the first two.

“I hate you. That’s not a question, by the way, it’s a statement of—of fact.” He couldn’t help a small flinch as he caught sight of the business that took up the next block. Rhodey said nothing but was watching Tony entirely too carefully now. Tony froze.

“No.”

“Tones—”

“I told you,” Tony interrupted. “Day one, what did I say?”

“I’m just trying to—”

“I said ‘I don’t do diners’, first thing out of my mouth, I think it came before my name—”

“Hey.” Rhodey put both hands on Tony’s shoulders. “A thousand pushups.”

Tony looked up in surprise. It was a stolen Brooklyn Nine-Nine reference, the first show they’d binge-watched together after being assigned as roommates. Tony used it pretty loosely but…Rhodey didn’t. Tony raised his eyebrows in question and Rhodey nodded seriously.

“Alright.” Tony straightened his shoulders. He could do this. It was just a stupid diner. Rhodey was right, he couldn’t avoid them his whole life. “If you want to waste a thousand pushups just to confront my issues over a shitty plate of eggs, that’s your problem.”

Rhodey chuckled and held the door open. Tony tried to keep his breathing even and not think of anything in particular. Sure, his brain was screaming and his heart was curled up in a painful little ball from all the repression but hey, whatever. He’d felt twice as bad all day every day for, oh, six months afterwards. He could handle a little throwback to the worst breakup of his life. Sure. No sweat.

Rhodey took his elbow, steered him into a booth. Apparently Tony had stopped in the doorway. Oops.

“You doing okay?”

“Peachy keen.” He focused on breathing. Breathing was good.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Hard pass.” Tony slumped down, pressed his face onto the cool tabletop. It actually helped a little. “Are you gonna friend-dump me in here? Compound the trauma? That’s cruel and unusual even by your standards.” 

“I would never friend-dump you, period.” Tony had been joking, mostly, but Rhodey’s tone was utterly serious and he ruffled Tony’s hair as he added, “Idiot.”

Tony loved him. He leaned into the hair-petting and sighed, tension easing up a tiny bit. This was fine. He could be fine. So what if diners held about six million of his favorite memories that were now tarnished forever? So what if he’d been dumped in one by the love of his life? It was fine.

Fine, fine, fine.

“Hey, Jim. Welcome to Roost, I can take your guys’ order when you’re—” Their waiter stopped short as Tony lifted his head off the table and they made eye contact. “Oh, shit! Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

“What—?” Tony started to ask but the guy just pointed at him firmly.

“Don’t move! I mean it!”

Bizarre. He turned to Rhodey. “What the hell just happened?”

“Dunno.” Rhodey shrugged vaguely. He wasn’t making eye contact.

“Wait, he called you by name—do you know that guy?”

“Yeah, Sam Wilson.” Rhodey picked at his napkin. Still no eye contact. “Buddy from ROTC.”

“Okay…so why did he—” There was a loud crash in the kitchen. Tony turned around to check out the commotion, leaned back to get a look through the kitchen window.

He saw an all too familiar face staring back.

Tony bolted. Shoved himself out of the booth, tripped on his way up but grabbed the cushion and used it to propel himself forward. Slammed the door of the diner open and burst out into the cold night air, ran down the block and into the parking lot. Rhodey always forgot to lock his car and for once Tony was thankful. He threw himself into it and locked the doors.

He could still see the sign from here.  _Roost_ in neon, lit-up owl on one end and the dim outline of a bluebird on the other, only the owl visible due to the time of night.

Exactly the kind of kitschy shit Steve loved.

When Rhodey caught up, Tony was still mildly hyper-ventilating. He tried unlocking the car with his key fob and Tony quickly locked it again.

“Are you—” Rhodey unlocked, Tony locked. “Are you fucking with my car locks like a five year old right now?”

“You’re the one who didn’t tell me where we were going!” Tony accused as they did another round of unlock-lock. “Adults tell adults where adults are going!”

“Listen, I—”

“Not to mention adults don’t fucking ambush their fucking friends with their  _fucking exes!”_

“Tones, you gotta breathe—”

“You breathe! Where’s the thousand pushups you owe me for tricking me into trusting you, asshole?”

“It wasn’t a trick, I really think—”

“Think what? That I need to be re-traumatized in yet another goddamn diner? Jesus Christ, I’m getting a complex here—”

“You already have a complex and frankly, you need this,” Rhodey insisted firmly. “It’s been what, four years? Is your plan to just freak out every time you come across a diner?”

Three years, seven months, six days.

“I’m not freaking out!”

“You locked yourself in my car.”

“Because you’re an asshole who tricked me into seeing my ex!” Tony scrubbed his hands over his face. “God, why is he even—how did you know he’d be there? Does he work there? Did Sam tell you? Why did Sam recognize me?”

“It’s Steve’s place,” Rhodey answered. Tony stared at him, betrayed. “Sam’s his friend. He was telling everyone in ROTC today about his vet buddy who just opened a business, discounts for ROTC and engineering students. I don’t know how he recognized you but I have a pretty good guess.”

Tony looked away. Stared straight ahead and tried counting his inhales and exhales.

He’d told Rhodey everything. Seeing Steve for the first time in a diner by their high school. Spending way too long watching him work, busing tables and taking orders, and eventually getting caught. Finding excuses to go there with friends so he’d seem cool, popular, when really he’d barely known any of those people. Ditching them all when they started ragging on ‘the loser behind the counter’ and not regretting it for a second. Flirting with him, unsubtle in all the ways of a ridiculous freshman in way over his head. His stunned surprise that Steve had flirted back and eventually written his number on the back of a receipt.

How much Tony had loved him. Still loved him. How he’d never once doubted Steve when he said he loved him back. How owning a diner had been Steve’s dream, being his own boss and connecting with people over good food at a good price. How many hours they’d spent hanging out at Steve’s work or going on reconnaissance dates at “the competition” to get ideas, brainstorming and sketching out design ideas for the future. How Steve used to slip sometimes and say  _ours_ instead of  _mine_ but never seemed to hear or correct himself, so Tony never told him and just quietly reveled in it. How much he’d wanted it.

He heard Rhodey unlock the car doors again. He didn’t fight it this time. Rhodey squeezed into the passenger seat with him, forcing himself in until they were squished together and Tony was half seated on the console.

“ROTC made you fat.” Tony tried to crack a joke, poking at one of Rhodey’s muscles. It rang hollow.

“Did you hear the part about the engineering student discount?” Rhodey asked. Tony nodded numbly. “Okay. Well, Sam also told us to tell every engineering student we know. Get the word out. When I asked why, Sam pulled me aside. Told me a real familiar story.”

“Did it mention the part where one person goes off to war and grows up and realizes his boyfriend of three years isn’t worth wasting his time on anymore?”

“Funny enough, it doesn’t.” Rhodey nudged his elbow. “It mentions a brilliant engineer, though. One willing to put their whole life on hold to sit around writing novel-length letters and skyping for hours and hacking government servers to track troop movements so he could alter data regarding classified military operations—”

“They were going to send him on a suicide mission,” Tony said fiercely. Rhodey just hummed. “Besides, what does any of this matter? He still dumped me. He can’t have thought I was all that great.”

“I don’t know anything for sure,” Rhodey admitted. “But the way Sam tells it…long distance relationships are hard. You were about to go to college. Meet new people, experience new things, learn how to change the world. You’d already spent half your senior year of high school waiting for him with another three and a half years to go. He didn’t want that for you.”

“Then he should’ve asked what I fucking wanted, cause this sure as shit isn’t it,” Tony snapped. Rhodey wisely didn’t let himself be baited. He waited Tony out and eventually Tony sighed. “And now he wants…what? Forgiveness for being a total dick?”

“Maybe more for being eighteen and an idiot.”

“He dumped me in the diner where we met,” Tony said quietly. “Twenty-four hours leave. We spent twenty-two of it together like nothing had changed. Like he still—then at the last minute, he tells me he’ll drive himself to the airport. That he’s sorry, that he’ll always love me, blah fucking blah but he can’t do this anymore cause it isn’t fair. Like he’s got to spread his wings or some shit.”

“He told you he needed to spread his wings?”

“No.” Tony rolled his eyes. “It was pretty obvious what he meant though. Talking about how we shouldn’t feel like just because we felt one thing at fifteen we weren’t allowed to reconsider, to explore other options and try new things or what the fuck ever. He probably met someone better in the Army. Now he’s out and lonely and wants to score a rebound off his loser high school ex—”

Rhodey elbowed him hard. “First of all, shut the fuck up.”

“First—?” Tony started but Rhodey just elbowed him again. “Hey, ow!”

“Seriously. Second of all, listen to yourself. Callously using his  _super cool_  high school ex for a hookup doesn’t sound like the guy you’ve described to me before.”

“I guess,” Tony muttered. Rhodey bumped their shoulders together.

“Still talking. Third…try and think about what he said back then without the angst filter. I mean he said, what, that he felt he wasn’t being fair to you? That you should be able to explore other options and not feel tied to one thing? Sounds like he just wanted you to be happy, Tones.”

Tony clenched his jaw, fought back the surge of heat behind his eyes. “Well. That worked out great, didn’t it?”

“I’m not saying he didn’t fuck it up. I’m just saying…maybe it came from a genuine place, at the time. And maybe he wants to fix it.”

“Is that what Sam says?” Tony shot him a dirty look. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you two conspiring behind my back.”

“No conspiring, I promise. Didn’t even tell him I knew you. I didn’t want…” Rhodey shook his head. “I know this feels like an ambush. It’s not. I didn’t tell Sam because I didn’t want him telling Steve, the guy deserves to be as off-guard as you are, but also because I didn’t want it to be some kind of conspiracy to get you here.”

“Okay.” Rhodey hadn’t set him up. He let the relief of that wash over him for a moment. “But then why didn’t you just tell me where we were going?”

“Would you have come?” Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “Or would you have worked yourself into a state and never even made it into the car?”

Tony let his silence speak for that one. “How did Sam recognize me?”

Rhodey hesitated. “I mean…telling people to get the word out about an engineer discount kinda sounds like he’s looking for you. He probably showed Sam a picture.”

“Why wouldn’t he just—” Tony paused in horrified realization. “I had to change my number. I completely forgot, my phone—freshman year, you remember?”

“Are you seriously asking if I remember the time my roommate of two weeks bombed the chemistry lab?”

“It wasn’t a bomb,” Tony dismissed. “But Verizon wouldn’t take me back after that, some bullshit about liability issues—I had to switch and Sprint couldn’t give me the same number.”

“I mean, he still could’ve Facebooked you,” Rhodey pointed out. Tony made a face.

“Not exactly,” he admitted. Rhodey’s eyebrows jumped.

“You blocked him? You spent half of freshman year on his Facebook page, I thought it was your wallpaper.”

“That’s why I had to block him!”

“Instagram? Twitter? Snapchat?”

“Same problem!”

“How was keeping him on Snapchat hard? There’s no profiles to stalk or anything—”

“I kept drunk-snapping him.” Tony groaned into his hands. “Now he thinks I’m ignoring him.”

“To be fair, you are.” Rhodey patted his shoulder. “Which is good! Let him think you’ve moved on. If he can’t see your social media then for all he knows you’ve spent the past four years living it up and dating other people.”

“I have been living it up and dating other people!”

“You barely leave the labs. I might be the only human being you’ve interacted with this week.”

“Rude. Fine, so I didn’t really date. I still moved on. I slept with other people.”

“Sleeping with other people isn’t moving on if you still wish it was him.”

“I’m not gonna tell you things if you’re just gonna use them against me—”

“I’m not using it against you, I’m reminding you of reality.” Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Just don’t tell him any of that. Act like you barely remember him.”

“One second of eye contact was enough for me to sprint out of his diner, I think he knows I remember him.”

“Not a great start, but—shit, is that him?” Rhodey peered through the windshield.

“Tall, blond, stupid hot?” Tony tried to duck onto the floor of the passenger seat and ended up squished between Rhodey’s legs. “Move your knees!”

“Move them where? Yeah, he’s—I dunno, definitely tall, kinda blond, got a good jawline if that’s your thing—fuck, he saw me looking, I think he—fuck.”

“Don’t look!”

“I think he’s coming over—”

“Stop looking!”

“Yeah, okay, the closer he gets the more I see it, dude could definitely model—”

“Stop talking about how hot my ex-boyfriend is!”

“I’m just saying, he’s got those v muscles on his hips I can never seem to—”

“Why the hell are you—wait, he does?” Tony started to poke his head up for peek and Rhodey quickly shoved his head back down.

“Don’t look, he’s coming!”

“Quit shoving my head!” 

“Then quit being an idiot!”

“You’re an idiot, let go—” Tony tried to wiggle out of Rhodey’s hold by hitting him in the stomach but accidentally got him in the dick instead.

Which was of course when Steve appeared in the window.

Steve paused with his hand raised, about to knock. His eyebrows jumped and his cheeks went red as he took in Tony’s hand on Rhodey’s jeans, Rhodey’s hand in Tony’s tousled hair, and of course the part where Tony was at this point on his knees between Rhodey’s legs.

Steve whipped around and was gone.

“Shit, get off me.” Tony shoved Rhodey’s knee to the side, leveraged himself off the floor.

“Me get off you? You just punched me in the dick!”

“Tapped,” Tony disagreed, grabbing the door handle and finally tumbling out of the car. He glanced around just in time to see Steve turn the corner.

He took off after him.

This was a bad idea. Let him think Tony went around blowing people in parking lots now. Let him think Rhodey was his boyfriend and they’d gone out for a nice dinner only to be interrupted by an ex Tony had no interest in seeing. Let him think Tony didn’t still love him so much it hurt, hadn’t been hoping all this time that Steve would call him up when he got out and say  _hey, let’s catch up sometime._ That Tony wouldn’t have gone back to him any damn time Steve asked.

Whatever. It wasn’t like he’d ever known how to play it cool around Steve anyway. 

“Steve!” Tony called once he turned the corner, catching sight of him again just a block away now. He was fast-walking but came to an abrupt stop at the sound of Tony’s voice. “Steve, wait up!”

Tony kept running, just in case. Steve didn’t take another step. Tony stopped just behind him.

“Hey,” he said. Steve didn’t turn around. “Listen, that was…”

“You don’t owe me an explanation,” Steve said. He still hadn’t turned around. His voice sounded tight. Forced. “I shouldn’t have followed, you obviously didn’t want to see me. I’m sorry.”

Tony remembered like a gut punch that this was exactly how Steve used to sound when he was trying desperately hard not to cry.

Steve was the one who dumped him. Tony had gotten drunk enough to cry about it into Rhodey’s favorite Air Force hoodie more times than he, or Rhodey for that matter, cared to remember. He should want Steve to cry about this too. Should want him to hurt like he’d hurt Tony. 

Should.

“Rhodey’s just a friend.” Tony came around to face Steve. No tear tracks, Steve had always been pretty good at that, but his eyes had a familiar watery sheen. Steve’s brow furrowed curiously. “I was trying to hide from you. Apparently really badly.”

“Oh.” Steve’s jaw jumped, another familiar sign he was trying to roll all his unwanted emotions into a tight little ball to be locked away and ignored forever. Tony used to be pretty good at unlocking that Pandora’s box.

They’d both changed a little, sure. Steve had done an awful lot of changing when they were dating too though. Light enough Tony could pick him up at first, then tall and wiry when he ran track, later joining football and filling out with muscles Tony hadn’t known the names of. Loving Steve had never been about any of that. There was something in his face. More than the line of his jaw or the symmetry of his features, it was his expressions that always felt like home. They used to read each other’s minds with a flick of an eyebrow or wry curve of the mouth, grinning when their friends called them nauseating.

“He does ROTC with your buddy, Sam,” Tony continued. “Sam told him why engineers get a discount and Rhodey thought it sounded like you were maybe looking for someone.”

“I was. But if you’re—if you’re happy then that’s—I mean, I’m…” Steve blinked a few times, quick, trying to will it away. A single tear escaped anyway. Steve looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be mortified or angry about it and settled on both. “Goddamn it, I’m sorry, I—I really am happy for you. That’s all I wanted, right? That’s why I did it in the first place, I have no right to—”

Tony reached up to touch his thumb to the tear, wipe it away. “Yeah, you seem really happy right now.”

“I am,” Steve insisted stubbornly, though he was leaning into Tony’s touch even as he protested. Tony felt warm to his core despite the cold night air.

“So if I go back to the car and blow Rhodey instead of getting back together with you right now, you’d be thrilled?”

Steve’s breath caught. “You’d get back together with me?”

They should probably talk about it. Sit down, have a long conversation, figure out if this still worked.

Tony leaned up on his toes and kissed him. Steve met him halfway, pulled Tony in close like if he didn’t Rhodey might come back and whisk Tony away for himself. There was a sense of urgency to it, certainly, but more than anything Tony felt relief. Comfort. Like coming home after way too damn long of a trip.

“I called,” Steve said breathlessly. “The minute I landed.”

Tony winced. “I…may or may not have turned my phone into a bomb, which may or may not have resulted in Verizon declining to keep me on as a customer.”

Steve stared at him for a long minute before bursting into laughter. He laughed so hard he had to let go of Tony just to bend over, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

“It’s not  _that_ funny.” Tony scowled. Steve pivoted to take Tony in his arms again, really scoop him up this time, still laughing even as he kissed Tony again. They parted only barely and Steve pressed his forehead to Tony’s with a shaky inhale.

“God, I’ve missed you.”

A dramatic gasp echoed from behind them. “Are you cheating on me with your ex?”

It didn’t escape Tony’s notice that Steve’s arms immediately tightened around him.

“Play nice, Rhodey,” Tony warned. When Steve’s grip didn’t loosen, Tony added, “He’s just messing with you.”

“I know that.” Steve relaxed a fraction at most. “Nice to meet you, Rhodey.”

“Third time’s the charm, right? Don’t worry about the blowjob earlier, purely platonic. Tony was tense after seeing you so we—”

“Oh my god, enough!” Tony interrupted when Steve’s hold tightened all over again. “He’s still teasing you, Steve.”

“Right.” Steve’s eyes narrowed. Rhodey’s eyes narrowed right back.

“Gotta keep you on your toes, Rogers.” Rhodey shrugged. “Just cause he’ll let you off easy doesn’t mean I have to.”

Steve glanced between them, question written all over his anxious puppy face. Tony pressed a kiss to his cheek just because he could.

“We never dated. Or kissed, or anything else going through your head right now. We were roommates at MIT and now we share an apartment.” Steve’s head started to tilt. “Separate bedrooms.”

“Pretty protective for a friend,” Steve hedged.

“Best friend,” Rhodey corrected. “And someone had to step up after his dumbass of a ex-boyfriend dumped him.”

Steve cracked a smile. He released Tony long enough to shake Rhodey’s hand. From the way Steve’s eyebrows jumped, Rhodey must’ve been firm.

“Steve Rogers,” Steve offered. “Dumbass semi-not-ex-boyfriend.”

“James Rhodes,” Rhodey eyed him. “Unimpressed.”

“Back up, semi-not?” Tony questioned.

“I don’t know, we haven’t exactly discussed it.” Steve glanced at him, embarrassed. “I’d like to not be.”

“I don’t know, Tony,” Rhodey said loudly. “What about that other guy you’re really into? Are you sure he’s worth giving up on?”

Steve flinched. Tony made a face at Rhodey. “Who could you possibly be talking about right now?”

“Tiberius! Smart, handsome, connected…definitely a step up from Rogers here.”

“I went on half a date with him over a year ago and he was a total asshole, what are you—” Tony started, cut off when Rhodey grabbed his arm and tugged, whispered in his ear.

“You gotta make him work for it, Tones!”

“Why? He’s back, we kissed, everything’s great,” Tony whispered back.

“Just like that it’s all forgiven?”

“I mean…we’re gonna talk about some stuff, but—”

“He dumped you and left me to pick up the pieces, are you seriously going to get back together with him after one kiss?”

“Technically it was two kisses, three if you count the cheek—”

“Why would I count the cheek, no one counts cheek—” 

“What, you think I should drag it out just to get revenge?”

“Not revenge, just…you know, even the score a little bit.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to keep score when you love someone.”

“Oh, great, you’ve been re-dating the guy two seconds and we’re on the ‘when you love someone’ soapbox—”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Just don’t tell him, okay? Promise me you will not tell him that for at least a week.”

“What, that I love him? Why not?”

“Because it’s been four years! He obviously still has feelings for you but four years is a long time, he might not, you know, be feeling the big L just yet and I don’t want you to get hurt by this asshole  _again_ —”

“Uh.” Steve cleared his throat. “So, you guys are really bad at whispering. Heads up on that. Also it’s been three years, not four, and I’m definitely still in love with you. Not ‘first boyfriend, good memories, love that guy’ love, I mean ‘love of my life, miss him every day, will strive to never hurt him again so long as I live’, that kind of love. Just so we’re all on the same page.”

Tony blinked. Looked at Rhodey. “Works for me. Work for you?”

“Are you gonna listen if I say no?”

“Nope.”

“Great, cheers.” Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Pay no attention to the guy who held your hand while you cried about him for four years, that’s fine.”

“Three years,” Tony corrected quickly, then, “Wait, not that I—it was maybe twice and I was super drunk both times, it’s not like I just went around in tears all the time—”

“You cried?” Steve looked heartbroken.

“We dated for a long time!” Tony protested, hissing to Rhodey, “Okay, you’ve had your fun, goodbye now—”

“My fun? I just got you back together with the love of your life, I don’t even get a thank you?”

“Thank you goodbye!”

“Wait,  _are_  we back together?” Steve asked hopefully.

“Yes!” Tony threw his hands up. “Will both of you shut up about it already? Rhodey, making him ‘work for it’ means less time being back together with the love of my life, so shocker, I’m not in favor of that plan. Steve, I have never and will never do sex things with Rhodey but you also don’t get to be jealous of relationships you don’t understand the depth of because you weren’t around, because you  _chose not to be around.”_

Rhodey and Steve stared back at him. Slowly but surely they both broke into grins.

“Sounds like you got this, Tones.” Rhodey ruffled his hair. “See you at home, whenever that ends up being. Text me.”

“I will.” Tony punched his arm in goodbye. After Rhodey was a few feet away, he turned to Steve. “Seriously. He’s my best friend, he’s nonnegotiable.”

“Understood. I think I’m growing on him?” Steve laughed as Rhodey flipped him the bird over his shoulder.

“Jury’s still out!” Rhodey called.

“Or not.”

“Nah, you are.” Tony maneuvered his way into Steve’s arms. “Still love me, huh?”

“Never stopped. Still love me?”

“Never stopped.” Tony went up on his toes to give Steve a lingering kiss. “Wanna take this somewhere more private?”

“I do…” Steve hesitated. “But my place may also contain five housemates. And paper-thin walls.”

“ _Five?”_

“I just opened a business! Things are tight!”

Tony glanced down the street after Rhodey. “Oh, he’s gonna kill me.”


End file.
